BIRMINGHAM, Alabama – Two men who face capital murder charges in a December slaying during a heroin purchase have pointed to one another as the person who fired the fatal shot, an investigator testified Tuesday.

Birmingham police responded to a report of shots fired shortly before 3 p.m. that Saturday in Ensley. When they arrived on the scene, they found Long lying in the road at the intersection of 33rd Street and Avenue E. He was pronounced dead on the scene.

Long had left an apartment complex on Avenue E and gotten into a vehicle. Neighbors reported hearing about four shots, and Long's body was found about a block away.

The three co-defendants appeared before Jefferson County Circuit Judge Teresa Pulliam for a preliminary hearing July 1. The judge bound the cases over for review by a grand jury.

Hale and Dunlap each told police the other man was the shooter, while Harris' description of the shooting changed several times, Birmingham police Detective Jeff Steele testified.

But, Steele said, their accounts of that afternoon have a few consistent threads – Long was sitting in the back seat when he was shot by someone sitting in the front passenger seat, and the co-defendants had planned to arrive at the Ensley apartment complex, snatch heroin from Long and leave.

Dunlap and Harris went to McCalla to pick up Hale, then drove to Ensley to meet Long to purchase heroin. Another man, who was driving the car, told investigators that Dunlap shot Long, then they drove down a nearby alley. Hale went through Long's pockets to retrieve heroin, then pushed him out of the car, the witness said.

Police found fragmented glass and a bullet on the car's floorboards, but no blood or fingerprints were found. Harris told police that she threw the bullet casings out of the car as they drove along an interstate, Steele testified.

Hale initially told police he was not in the car when Long was shot, but later said he had been in the back seat and watched as Dunlap shot Long.

Deputy Jefferson County District Attorney Carlos Gonzalez is prosecuting the cases.

John Wiley is representing Dunlap, Michael Shores and Josh Jones are representing Hale, and Bill Myers is representing Harris.

Shores and Myers argued that the charges against their clients should be downgraded because investigators have shown no evidence of intent to kill Long.